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A judge has called for an urgent review to determine whether
Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom should be allowed to see the
information the United States government is planning to use in its
case against him.

The US asked for a judicial review of the decision made in North
Shore District Court in May to grant Dotcom the right to
information gathered by the FBI.

The Megaupload founder was arrested after police swooped on his
home in January and stands accused of breaching copyright laws
costing owners more than US$500 million. US authorities are
attempting to extradite him to face the charges.

Authorities say he and his three co-accused - Mathias Ortmann,
Fin Batato and Bram Van der Kolk - used Megaupload and its
affiliated sites to knowingly make money from pirated movies and
games.

The Megaupload lawyers have argued that a lack of disclosure of
the evidence would unreasonably deny Dotcom and his co-accused
natural justice and would leave him unable to prepare a case to
fight his extradition.

But the United States is opposed to providing defendants with
disclosure while they are awaiting extradition because they have
not surrendered to the jurisdiction of the United States court.

The US said the North Shore District Court had acted beyond its
jurisdiction in allowing the disclosure of evidence, and in a
decision published today High Court judge Helen Winkelmann found
there were grounds for the case to be reviewed.

US authorities said the disclosure of evidence would take at
least two months to arrange as the case against Dotcom includes
more than 10 million intercepted emails and the contents of various
web servers and computers.

However, Dotcom and his associates did not want any delays to
the extradition process and were keen that the hearing date of
August 6 was kept.

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Winkelmann ordered a compromise arrangement where the US
authorities would prepare the documents for disclosure, but would
not release them until a judicial review of the original decision
was carried out.

Dotcom is currently on bail in Auckland.

Plea to drop charges rejected

The US attorney's office has dismissed claims by Megaupload
founder Kim Dotcom that criminal copyright charges against him
should be thrown out.

According to an article on CNET News the attorney's office said,
in a paper filed to a court, that Dotcom's claims the US government
had no jurisdiction over the Hong Kong-based Megaupload service
were incorrect.

The US government also argued that Dotcom's request that the
charges be dismissed was premature as none of the defendants have
actually appeared before a court on the substantive charges.

And a request that more of Megaupload's money was returned would
be like returning money to a bank robber, Neil MacBride, US
Attorney for Eastern District of Virginia, told CNET News.

"The seized assets are simply not the defendants' to spend - and
they never were," he said.

This comes after news yesterday that a former New York federal
judge has waded into the Dotcom saga saying it was ''outrageous''
the US government is refusing to give Megaupload users back their
data.

In an article on wired.com Judge Abraham David Sofaer said he
was ''troubled'' that the files of 66.6 million Megaupload
customers were being kept as part of the US government case against
Dotcom.

"It's really quite outrageous, frankly.

''I was thinking the government hadn't learned to be discreet in
its conduct in the digital world. This is a perfect example on how
they are failing to apply traditional standards in the new
context."

Sofaer has teamed up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and
is urging a US federal court to set up a system to allow Megaupload
users to get back their legal content, the site said.